Happy November!

Too bad we are all sick today! Except Ezra. I think he is enjoying the rest of us being miserable and letting him rule the home today. Toy time and movies. All day long.

Fortunately I was hardly sick this weekend. We went down to the 'burbs of Chicago to go to the temple and I also got a new tooth. Did I mention my aunt is a dentist? We also had to of course stop by Ikea to at least check out their "as-is" section. We scored some kiddy sheets for only $3 each! Sweet deal. We almost bought a display bunk bed for $99 but decided there would be too many dangerous situations at this time- Daredevil Vivienne climbs to the top, gets into position, and- oooohhhh...

It was a nice weekend, but now it's time to recover. It seems like Daylight Savings is every parents' worst nightmare. We seem to be the lucky ones because I think our kids have always slept in an "extra hour" waking up at their normal time. Last night, Carl and I even slept almost 12 hours! Unheard of! We were exhausted.

Anyway, here is a fun video:

And promise to update on halloween:

first, Ezra's face. second, this was not their costumes, but they look pretty cute with their sprecher bird hats!

My Boy

my two favorite pictures: 6 days old and just a few months under 3 years old

Ezra Wallace.

He is 3 years and 3 months old.

My boy.

It baffles me to think that it has only been a little over 3 years ago when Ezra came screaming into the world (click here for my recollection of his birth. It was pretty intense at the time and still scares me some days recalling those memories...). He was so tiny and adorable. And very chubby eventually. He was such a good-tempered, calm baby.

he's our little water dog. We need to visit our Florida family soon because this poor kid has been begging to go to the beach!

And then he grew and he grew, and developed the best personality ever. I love his imagination and creativity. And his memory! The other day, I was watching this awesome video of The Piano Guys (piano and cello duo) playing their amazing music on the Great Wall of China (please let me go there someday, please, please, please!) and without mentioning it to Ezra, he looked up at me and asked if I was watching Kung Fu Panda, which was what they were playing! It has been months since we watched that and I'm pretty sure I've watched it more than he has and could not recognize that song right off.

Each week I have to clear photos on my phone, but I tend to do screen shots so I won't forget my goofy boy's faces

He had a word explosion right before he turned 3. Suddenly he went from a few short sentences and a few handfuls of words to complex question and LOTS of opinions. It is so fun to talk to him. He will talk your ear off if you let him, but he will mostly be happy if you pretend to go on jungle adventures with him or play hide and go seek (which he is terrible at because he always says "I'm here!!" when I say "hmm, where could Ezra be?" Ha. love it!).


I thought my most trying time as parent was tackling potty training. You must think I'm silly, but it was awful for me. I started trying when he turned 2 and then kept postponing every few weeks because he just wasn't "getting" it. If there's one thing I learned from this whole experience, it's that what "they" say is true: "if they're not ready, they are not ready." There is no magical age when each child is ready to be potty trained, but for Ezra, turning 3 and waiting 2 months seemed to do the trick. He's great at telling me when he needs to go now and we "run! run! run!" as quickly as we can no matter where we are at to make it to the potty. I'm so proud of him and SO glad that the accidents are rare these days. In just a few weeks, it'll be Vivienne's turn because she loves the potty!

big fan of the birds- tattoos, outfit (courtesy of Shnooks) and of course an angry bird birthday cake. The things we do for love :)

At this very moment, Ezra's favorites are:
- shows: Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer

- food: apples, bananas, grapes, dried apricots, pizza, and gummies. Though I must add that he is no longer the picky eater he once was. He'll eat just about anything if we tell him he needs to finish it (which makes meal time so much easier these days). He has to at least take one bite of a new food.

- activities: building block towers and "crashing" them, playing hide and go seek, exploring outside and collecting sticks and jumping in puddles, stealing dad's iPad to "crash" the angry birds or catch the bad guys (clash of the clans. nerrrrrd), pretending to be a robot, Diego, or a monster, and adding "Bobby" to the end of everyone's name (Ex. mommy-bobby, daddy-bobby, grandpa-bobby, etc.) Cracks me up every time!

love me some toddler selfies, especially the kissy-kissy lips!

He says the sweetest things.

me "I love you, Ezra"
ezra "I love you mooooore, Mommy."

and lately,

"I love my body! I love my body! I love your body too, mom. You too, Vivi"

"I really like your hair, mommy" (usually this is when it's a curly hot mess)

so sweet with his pancake; not so sweet dumping green food coloring all over himself and the couch.

Some days it can be the great battle of Mommy vs. Ezra, but I love him to pieces and love how much he's grown. Despite me missing his baby stage, I am thoroughly enjoying having him grow up. I look forward to the years to come and to see his already huge and inviting personality to just shine. I love thinking about the relationship he and Carl have and how much he will learn and absorb from Carl- fixing cars, building our home, learning about electricity and why the heart beats the way it does. I love that he and Vivienne play together so well and that he's learning to protect her and take her hand when necessary. He is such a good brother.


Ezra, you mean the world to us and we love you to the moon and back and more!

My Girl.

always so full of curiosity. 9/2013

I have been wanting to take the time to highlight my children. This blog, after all, is mostly for my dear family and friends to stay connected to us while we are living a few time zones apart.

Vivienne Chan is the most beautiful, adorable, loving, sassiest, and fearless little girl you will ever meet. She surprises us daily and is such a comedian.

At 18 months, she has an unbelievable vocabulary. She will repeat everything- our little parrot as we call her. As of her 18 month appointment a few weeks ago, she astonished us and the pediatrician when we counted 50+ words she uses daily. Vivi (her nickname) will acknowledge what you say by saying things like "hmm?" or "mm-hmm." I think it makes her seem more advanced than she really is since you could say "do you like it when it rains pistachio pudding?" and she'll reply with her brows raised "mm-hmm." But it's still adorable, nonetheless.

She loves her brother more than us I think. She loves to follow Ezra, bring him his toys and shoes, and is always looking for him if he's not next to her. Of course, like any sibling (and toddler) she enjoys picking on him and biting his arm or back when she doesn't get her way. Ouch. Sassy. Ezra says "Vivvvv" in an exasperated tone frequently when she picks off his plate or dumps her bowl raisins on the ground. It is hilarious. I can picture him saying it through the years, especially as a tween.

Vivienne has been growing steadily and is in the 30th percentile in weight and 20 something percentile in height. She does have an umbilical hernia since her birth and at her last appointment, the pediatrician identified a heart murmur. Nothing of concern yet, just keeping an eye on both until her 2 year appointment. I'm always happy to hear my children are overall healthy.

She has been getting cute little curls in her hair like Ezra did at her age. Love those sweet little curls. I'm loving the fact that she will wear little colored rubber bands or clips in her hair now too! She also still has that darling dimple on her left cheek. I love that dimple. I love seeing her develop from infancy to toddlerhood. She has always had this sneaky little smile since she was 6 or 7 months old where she scrunched her nose when she giggled and laughed. She still does it now and will also glare when angry or pucker her lips like I do when we feel slightly disappointed or unsure of a situation.

I love my little mini-me!

taking a drink, 9/2013

Traveling with Toddlers

some of you may have seen my exhaustion on instagram the day I traveled. 9/2013

Ok, I admit, that is a little dramatic. It was hard. As noted in my previous post, Carl is in school so I was left to lead the crew on a 10 day escapade to the golden land of California. Ezra was a little over 3 and Vivienne was 17 months. My flight was direct from Milwaukee to San Francisco (4 hours) and due to schedule circumstances, I was at the airport for 3 hours before boarding.

MKE play area. Another independent mother there quoted it as a "God-send." Ditto. 

We are fairly seasoned travelers for a family of four, though I've never traveled alone with two toddlers. There were moments where I felt triumphant, "I am woman, hear me roar"-esque and moments where I looked at strangers pleadingly with a twitching eye, silently begging for a hand, but in the end, we all survived. Here are my thoughts and "advice:"

1) check in everything except a back pack for yourself, which will hold necessities for the day- snacks, diapers, change of clothes, liquids in ziplock quart bag, etc and of course keep your stroller to check in at the gate! I used a double stroller, but Ezra would walk part of the time. I recommend a stroller that is easy to maneuver and fold and unfold quickly. I like using a back pack because it won't fall off your shoulders when snatching up your children as they run away quickly. It was nice to only have my backpack and a reusable grocery bag (kept in the stroller basket) which would hold Ezra's backpack when he was tired of carrying it, jackets, and a few toys. I could easily hold Vivienne at the gate or on the plane and I've taught Ezra to hold my shirt or bag when needed to stay close.

2) put your phone away and watch those kids! No time for texting or social media, make sure they are always in sight! While waiting for our flight, MKE fortunately has a play area that covered 2 hours of our time until a kid sat on Ezra and he wanted to leave. I don't blame him. We then waited for our flight next to our gate after checking in the stroller. I think this was the hardest part of the trip. The kids had a huge terminal to explore and their favorite things to do were go opposite directions, behind the chairs and on the ledge near windows. I really did not enjoy running behind other passengers and I really did not enjoy apologizing to the passengers whose heads were rubbed by my kids. Toddlers are not built to sit in one place for a long time- which brings me to my next point:

3) bring tasty distractions, a LOT of them, especially if they are your toddlers' favorites. I brought a huge bag of tricks- basically, I went to the dollar store and spent $10 on coloring books, dry erase boards, little toys and some jelly beans. Turns out the only thing my kids wanted were the jelly beans. Fortunately for my kids, I also brought a huge amount of snacks: applesauce packets (lifesavers, plus they are omitted in the less-than-4-oz rule since it's "baby food"), bags of grapes, raisins, goldfish, veggie straws and two empty sippy cups to be filled with 50/50 apple juice/water on board.

4) in regards to toys, I let my son bring two race cars and my daughter her baby doll. I also had my "bag of tricks" that I surprised them with at the airport. I had my phone which I loaded a movie and some TV shows on there before leaving the house. Tough item for the kids to share, but I basically let Ezra watch an unlimited amount of shows until he was bored with it. If I could have one extremely distracted toddler, it would make it much easier to watch the younger, not-so-easily distracted one. I just cycled through the toys and activities I brought until we would eat or arrive at our destination.

5) expect tantrums. They are toddlers! Ezra had 1-2 tantrums when Vivienne tried to take the toys he was playing with and Vivienne, well, Vivienne had many, many tantrums for many, many different reasons. I prefer my kids to be a little sleep-deprived on the plane ride so that they usually take a nap each, but that has its consequences- every parent knows tired children are a recipe for disaster(s). I just held my chin up and ignored the many stares I got when either of my kids freaked- whatever, we were all children at one point, right?

It's hard, but it doesn't have to be terrible. I had to get used to not having my man around to share the load- no time to read my book, play a game on my phone, browse the on-flight catalog of junk to buy, or even talk to other passengers. It was straight business (of the parent variety), but it was survivable and you know what? I'd do it again. Parents, have you found the golden "thing" that eases your travel worries? I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences!

passed out coming home to WI

FYI, my travel outfit:

chambray shirt, black leggings, strappy sandals easy to take on and off through security